A place of a ground-level Catholic's thoughts and such involving his faith and political observations.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Stress and the cut-off points?

I've always thought the old motto "burn out rather than fade away" would fit me to a T, but I was wrong.

I do not wanna burn out. I do not wanna die-out in what I believe, and I think recent events would illustrate the change:

I have a friend who honestly, I've been having weird issues with for the two years I've known her. At first it was a crush, now it was a friendship, or so I thought.

She has been through crap, and I offered my home state as refuge. But the one issue with this woman that, honestly, made me burn out was relapse.

You could help this girl, give her the new home, job, and friendly faces....and she drops it....

1) She feels like she doesn't deserve it, she is supposed to suffer. Nobody deserves to suffer! But her rocky life and even more boulder-isk relationship with her late mother put her on a path of self-denial and self-mental abuse.

2) She feels like she must latch on to people, and granted, this caused issues between her and I lately. I cannot be her nanny (or boyfriend either, hoo boy), and this pushed her into....

3).......shut-down mode, a mode I've noticed where she completely goes into a deep depression and barely even speaks. It seems to be a culmination of things, from both her parents passing away, her life being rough, and a plethora of other things, and her thought that "I'm not supposed to be happy". She will completely refuse happiness (or even sustenance like food) and honestly, I'm shocked that she is even alive.

Point being, though, is despite all of the above, and the several occasions where things just didn't add up from her end that were obvious indicators I should be wary, i.e. "I should've stopped trying to help looooong ago"....I burnt myself out trying to help this kid. I stumbled several times in faith and common sense, and all for naught: she will stay where she feels comfortable, a place where comfort is hard to find. But then again, at least she is going to a different part of Texas. I really do hope for her best, but Lord Almighty I'm burnt.

After all of this, I find myself exhausted and possibly stressed enough for health issues to finally latch on, because the guilt of this woman killing herself because she's mourning me and the issues people gave me over helping someone......well, I'm not too happy right now. I have recently gotten over it, and wish to forget about this experience so I can sleep, but meeting people like that, who you thought you knew those two years....it throws you for a loop.

But in all this, burn out. I felt that I can burn out and fade away into something new....but this experience of all this drama, dead-ends, and finding out that not everyone was telling the truth.....it all made me realize:

I just wanna sit here, under the shade of an oak tree with loved ones, sippin' my tea, and enjoying the sounds of an encroaching thunderstorm in the distance, with the smell the winds bring. I have no desires to push myself full-metal in some action movie, or be the bad-ass Doctor Phil, and despite willing to help people, I've learned that I do need to put myself ahead of everyone else or I burn out and take those folk with me.

In a sense, patience and knowing when to back off.....learned. When to make others stay away from me so I can breathe and not have them "shut down"......I think that's gonna take some time.

Either way, I think of what a friend told me after all this: let it be in God's hands, and take a damn break.